The Market for Aid

This timely volume offers - in an accessible and engaging style - digestible surveys on some of the hottest topics in the aid industry today, Klein and Harford examine the supply of aid and the demand for loans, the ""grants versus loans"" debate, debt restructuring in developing countries, aid effectiveness, and the role of the private sector. The authors also present two scenarios for the future of the aid industry: a world of booming private remittances and nongovernmental aid flows put to innovative uses? Or a world with falling numbers of people in absolute poverty, where aid agencies are forced to cooperate to survive? The authors argue that the aid industry is changing, old models of aid are under pressure, and both donors and recipients will ask more and more of aid agencies in future. The chaos of competition and the search for new ideas is frightening to some, and risks harming the people who the industry is supposed to benefit. Yet at the same time, there is a tremendous opportunity to harness competition to improve performance and find better ways of helping the poor. Klein and Harford argue for rigorous methods of evaluation and creative use of the private sector to produce a more effective aid industry in which new experiments are encouraged.